One of the horror genre's "most widely read critics" (Rue Morgue # 68), "an accomplished film journalist" (Comic Buyer's Guide #1535), and the award-winning author of Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002), John Kenneth Muir, presents his blog on film, television and nostalgia, named one of the Top 100 Film Studies Blog on the Net.

Sunday, April 06, 2008

Charlton Heston (1924-2008)

Sad times, we live in, especially if we cherish film and television of the past. We lost another great one last night, Oscar-winner Charlton Heston, who passed away at age 84. I'll be the first to admit I didn't often agree with his politics on a whole host of important issues...but ultimately that's immaterial. Heston is legend, and remains one of my all-time favorite movie actors. He was to me - quite simply - a God of the silver screen.

The 1970s, at least pre-Star Wars, was surely the golden age of the anti-hero in cinema and television. The majority of heroes on celluloid and the boob tube were angry "little" men like Kojak, Dirty Harry, or Paul Kersey from Death Wish...hardened, cynical men and vigilantes who bent the rules (otherwise known as the law) and who were disdained by society at large but championed nonetheless as heroic for bucking the system and cutting through red tape. Given such "heroes," that's why I'm so glad that - as my young and curious intellect formed - I had other examples to admire: heroes like William Shatner's Captain Kirk, Martin Landau's Commander Koenig, Darren McGavin's Kolchak, and Charlton Heston's iconic science fiction heroes: Taylor, Neville and Thorn.

I don't know -- I could be wildly off base here -- perhaps Heston's roles were those of the "anti-hero" too, but there was something unique and special about this actor; his performances and the parts he selected. Heston's genre roles always put him in conflict with the establishment and society too, but universally against a kind of inimical, anti-humanist society, whether one run by intelligent apes, subterranean mutants, evil (cannibalistic...) cabals, or albino night-dwellers.

This persona worked for me because -- even as a kid -- I knew that Heston had really sharp edges. He played tough, sometimes embittered characters but ones who ultimately - when push came to shove - fought (often to the death...) to do the right thing. He always seemed to play characters who didn't believe in the decency of humanity but because of circumstances was put in the position of defending humanity. He seemed to always play "the truth seeker."

I find something incredibly noble and moving about that aesthetic. If Heston were a typical Hollywood leftist/liberal I suspect this ethos wouldn't have worked. Instead, it's rather amazing to see a right-wing ideologue in the most leftist mainstream genre films of a cinematic age: Planet of the Apes (1968) and Soylent Green (1973). A left leaner discovering over-population and cannibalistic corporatism in Soylent Green is preaching to the choir...but right-winger Heston vetting it is a practical revelation. A left-leaner finding out that man destroyed himself with nuclear missiles in Planet of the Apes...same thing. I don't think I'm saying this well, but it's a kind of alchemy. It was and remains perfect casting.

One of my movie critic heroes and seminal influences, the late Pauline Kael said it better and more eloquently than I can. She explained Heston's presence in this manner (in regards to his role in Planet of the Apes):

"Physically, Heston with his perfect, lean, hipped body, is a god-like hero, built for strength, he's an archetype of what makes Americans win. He doesn't play nice guy; he's harsh and hostile, self-centered and hot-tempered. Yet we don't hate him, because he's so magnetically strong; he represents American power - the physical attraction and admiration one feels toward the beauty of strength as well as the moral revulsion one feels toward the ugliness of violence...He is the perfect American Adam to work off some American guilt feelings or self-hatred on." (Pauline Kael, New Yorker: Apes Must Be Remembered, Charlie," "February 17, 1968, page 108.

I know this next statement will read or sound corny, but to my young mind (and somewhere in my arrested adult mind...), I watch Charlton Heston in his sci-fi films and I say: yes, this is what a man is. This is what a man looks like. (God, I sound like I'm quoting Fight Club, I fear.) I realize I'll probably get skewered for that admission, from both sides of the political spectrum, but this is how I feel. Maybe I'm just a sucker for this idea: In Heston's genre performances there is a man who believes one thing (for good reason) but embraces reality and modulates his views, while still being true to himself. He chooses based on the situation at hand, not on his previous belief system. His characters aren't "faith based" in the sense that they believe on Wednesday what they believe on Monday - regardless of what happened on Tuesday. Instead, he deals, he adjusts, but he is still powerful, still an individual, still true to his core self. He isn't a hypocrite, he's a realist and a pragmatist. He is what an American hero used to be like Patriotic...but open to input, even if it flies in the face of old values and tradition.

I have to admit that as much as I appreciate Michael Moore and love his films (particularly Sicko), Bowling for Columbine fell apart for me in the finale when he accosted Charlton Heston. When he went after an old man. Heston was gentleman enough to permit Moore (and film crew...) into his house, and - without preparation - attempted to explain his positions on guns and gun control. He misspoke, perhaps, in a moment of trying to express himself, but Moore's film tried to portray this fumble as racism. I didn't like seeing one of my childhood heroes ambushed, and I don't think that this moment is going to prove - in the final analysis - to be one of Moore's career highlights. I know a lot of viewers who feel exactly the same way: they loved the film until it looked like Moore was making his point at the expense of an old, unprepared man. It just makes Moore look mean-spirited. And Moore never noted in the film, for instance, that Heston fronted films that derided nuclear war and right-wing religious zealotry (Planet of the Apes), big business and environmentalism (Soylent Green), and racial division (The Omega Man). As someone who grew up with those films as practical Scripture, I feel this is a fatal omission, and particularly one-sided.

But I've gotten off track here. It isn't my intent to defend Heston or his right-wing beliefs (which I don't share), only to state my opinion that he was a talent who was more than the sum of his political convictions. He was an icon, and for kids in the 1970s, he was the best game in town. Planet of the Apes, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green and The Omega Man -- these were the screen fantasies of my youth (pre-Star Wars), and there was Charlton Heston, front-and-center defending the human race and human values -- in every damn one of them. He gave me hours and years and decades of enjoyment, fronting those films and I cherish his performances and his memory. I don't have to agree with Hestons beliefs to admire him, and to admire what he accomplished in a long and versatile career.

2 comments:

I have to agree with you on the Bowling For Columbine statement. I was actually thinking about that when I was responding to a post that Rob made. It was highly repulsive to me as well, and it's no secret on my political views. I think we've finally had a meeting of the minds, so to speak! I also give him a lot of credit due to teh fact that in today's political climate in Hollywodd, he never once backed down from his beliefs, or for that matter tried to hide tham. He was truly a maverick in Hollywood. I had heard once, and don't know if it's an apocraphyl story, that after the Rodney King verdict when Los Angeles was in flames, that several people went to his house as their first destination to "weather the storm", so to speak.

One of my fondest Heston-related memories came just last year. We had a dreadful double bill at Fantasmo, and as way of "cleansing the palate", Rob showed The Omega Man. It was a VERY small audience, only He, myself, Jim, and one other person. It was an interseting connection, the four of us watching Heston watching Woodstock:The Movie in an empty theater. The common theme of jokes we made was that Heston could've done any damn thing he wanted, and it was part of his master plan- because he was Chuck! It was a bit silly, but deep down, we all kinda believed it...because Chuck could do whatever he wanted! The jokes were made with the utmost respect and reverence. I fear that we may never see those like him again.

About John

award-winning author of 27 books including Horror Films FAQ (2013), Horror Films of the 1990s (2011), Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), TV Year (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007), Mercy in Her Eyes: The Films of Mira Nair (2006),, Best in Show: The Films of Christopher Guest and Company (2004), The Unseen Force: The Films of Sam Raimi (2004), An Askew View: The Films of Kevin Smith (2002), The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film & Television (2004), Exploring Space:1999 (1997), An Analytical Guide to TV's Battlestar Galactica (1998), Terror Television (2001), Space:1999 - The Forsaken (2003) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002).

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